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Looking Beneath the Surface
Winfield, Mark Coumans, Catherine Kuyek, Joan Newman François Meloche, and Amy Taylor
Winfield, Mark
Coumans, Catherine
Kuyek, Joan Newman
François Meloche, and Amy Taylor
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Abstract
"Mining has been portrayed as a sector that "built" Canada. The industry commonly refers to this history while asserting its continuing importance to the Canadian economy. But the industry must now also face questions about its environmental, social and economic sustainability. Public expenditures once viewed as laudable support for a key industry are now being questioned domestically and internationally as distortions of investment signals and market prices, while promoting unsustainable patterns of resource consumption. There is also a growing question about the "legality" of these expenditures in the context of the international trade agreements to which Canada is a signatory. Given these factors, questions must be asked as to whether public funds should be spent to support primary resource extraction when investment in other types of economic activity may provide for more sustainable uses of natural resources and more sustainable employment in remote communities now facing the disruptions of boom-and-bust cycles in mining. In this context, this report has three major objectives: 1. To document the level of government expenditures, and governmental assumptions of liabilities and risks, in support of the metal mining sector in Canada, including the identification of major gaps in information regarding the nature and extent of these public expenditures, liabilities and risks, and to identify changes in their structure and levels over time; 2. To assess the economic benefits associated with the Canadian metal mining industry as presented by governments and the mining industry, and to document trends in the generation of benefits by the sector over time; and 3. To present an assessment of the trends in public expenditures, and assumptions of liability and risk, related to the metal mining sector in Canada relative to the sector's economic benefits." [from the Report Summary (http://www.miningwatch.ca/sites/www.miningwatch.ca/files/belowsummary-eng_0.pdf)]
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Preprint
Date
2002-10
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0921719841
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With permission of the license/copyright holder